Let’s face it, the recent fake referendum in Catalonia has been end to end bullshit.

It’s bullshit because that’s what you call a referendum that has no constitutional guarantees, that does not allow for an informed and plural debate and dialogue, and which is not the culmination of a process that leads to a consensual ending in the form of a collective and democratic plebiscite. It’s bullshit, because in calling the referendum and then insisting on the referendum the Catalan government have placed the public in harm’s way. Continue reading →

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, the view of the UK government doesn’t get any better.

Edinburgh, London, Brussels, Beijing or Washington. It’s increasingly obvious that Theresa May and her cabinet are a painfully embarrassing and unfunny joke.

They stand as an obdurate aberration where once there had been some semblance of cultured diplomacy, breadth and depth of intelligence and strategic thinking. They defy the laws of reason, good sense and decency. They are the Keystone Cops, the Chuckle Brothers and the Carry On Camping of governance. Continue reading →

In my opinion, Brexit, any Brexit, could spell economic, political and social disaster for the UK. Brexit could ensure the demise of the Good Friday Agreement, with seriously damaging consequences. It could see the independence of Scotland – not necessarily a bad thing for Scotland, but yet another unintended consequence of Brexit. And, it could significantly deteriorate the rights and conditions of workers in the UK.

So, I wish to put a Brexit question to Jeremy Corbyn.

Will the working people in the UK be better off if the UK leaves the European Union?

US liberals still don’t get it, do they? I was particularly unimpressed by The Guardian’s US correspondent, Richard Wolffe, who wrote this of Trump “He is the very man Hillary Clinton warned us that he would be.”

Like as if we really need the advice of an entitled and arrogant warmonger about any other unhinged member of the globalised political circus. Continue reading →

Will Brexit result, as I read on Twitter, in the UK “taking back what we never lost to lose everything we currently have.”?

My concern is about what could happen to the people in the UK when we have finally run-away from Europe.

With Brussels gone, with the EU and the Single Market gone, with our EU citizenship ripped from our cold dead hands, who will Brexiteers have to complain about once we have become an isolated, tiny and populous ex-colonialist island to the east of New Jersey?

They told us that Brexit would mean control over sovereignty and immigration. Which would mean total control over the economy, culture, society, law making, international relationships and trade.

They told us that voting for Brexit was the only patriotic option on offer.

This is what the backers of Brexit, through media, political and celebrity bullshitting agents, and a plethora of Brexit’s useful idiots, were telling us we would get once we were out of the EU. Continue reading →

Like him or loath him, the fact of the matter is that the 45th President of the USA is Donald Trump.

Many see him as a blow-dried extrovert who can close big business deals and get the important jobs done. Others see him as an uncouth, ignorant and potty-mouthed bully, totally unfit for any public office – even that of dog-catcher.

He may have lots of detractors both sides of the beltway, but Donald Trump, who has been compared favourably with Andrew Jackson, has retained considerable support, especially in the rustbelt and coal mining communities.

Last year I was asked if I would contemplate taking on the management of Brexit. It was a hypothetical question. No one is actually going to offer me the job. I had no qualms in stating that, given the complexity, uncertainties, risks and costs, I would hope that I would have the good sense to turn down such an offer. With the recommendation to the client that they should not to undertake such a reckless, costly and strategically stupid project.

So, that’s my going-in position. As other strategists will have picked up on. Continue reading →